


Sic erit; haeserunt tenues in corde sagittae

by witheredsong



Series: Dawn of a new world [1]
Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Rome, Alternate Universe - Baseball, M/M, San Francisco Giants
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-04-11 18:19:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4446728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witheredsong/pseuds/witheredsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Geraldus thinks with a kind of calm, detached astonishment, “This one was fated for me, this one, and the Moirai have bound us together in unbreakable chains .”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to Sophiahelix. Inspired by some photographs of Buster Posey in full gear, looking for all the world like a Roman Empire surveying his domains.
> 
> "Every lover wages a war, Cupid has his own campaign  
> Believe me, Atticus, every lover wages a war." - Ovid.
> 
> "“Love shook my heart  
> Like the wind on the mountain  
> rushing over the oak trees.”  
> ― Sappho

Geraldus, the young dux and Supreme Commander of the Roman Army, the Caesar’s nephew, was so named because he was born in Alemania, where his mother, the Caesar’s devoted sister, followed him on his campaigns. The Caesar calls him Bas, blessed, because he thinks Geraldus’s birth brought good fortune and victory over the Germanic tribes to him. Though young, Geraldus is already famed for his innovative military tactics and calm nature, and is widely expected to rule Rome after his uncle dies.

One rainy overcast day in the month of Quintilis, Geraldus, overseeing the exercises of his soldiers, suddenly finds his eyes arrested by a man practicing pilum-throws. His motion is unorthodox, but his speed and accuracy are deadly. He walks over when the man finishes his session, shaking his long dark hair out of his eyes, taking a drink of water from his friend. This close, he is slight, and a head shorter than Geraldus. He looks up when Geraldus’s shadow falls across him. His eyes are a strange brown-green, wide and clear in his face.

Geraldus experiences an odd sensation in his chest, a momentary shortening of his breath. “Iaculator”, he asks, and his voice comes out deeper, softer than usual, “What is your name?” The man inhales sharply when he registers the royal Tyrian purple edging Geraldus’s simple cotton tunic, and drops on one knee. “Timotheus, my Lord”, he says, husky and clear, takes Geraldus’s right hand to kiss his signet ring. A fine tremor overtakes Geraldus then, in his own camp, on his own exercise field, under a gray sky, as he thinks with a kind of calm, detached astonishment, “This one was fated for me, this one, and the Moirai have bound us together in unbreakable chains .”


	2. Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "May be it was because he would have dropped to his knees for Geraldus even if he were he a common man, even if he were a slave, even if he were infamia, as shameful as that was."

Four days pass after the strange meeting Timo has with the young dux Geraldus on the exercise field of his legion’s camp, 6 leagues outside the city walls. He doesn’t know why, but his heart has been restless since the moment he felt the ice-blue eyes observing him coolly from the edge of his throwing mound, and nothing he does settles the unquiet hollow in his belly. It’s all stupid, but the tall muscled figure in the royal purple edged tunic, the sharp features, but above all, those eyes haunt his rest, and he has been out of sorts, so much so that his old centurion, Righetti, takes him to task when some of his pilum throws go awry.

He is no stranger to desire for men - has had his dalliances with willing camp-mates, been called names (puer, cinaedus, delicatus, the sneers at his slight figure, long hair, smooth features), but he once put a gladius to the neck of Melciorus for the slights, had to be pulled off by Zetonius. Since then, and especially after they watched him throw the pilum, no one dares to insult him to his face. The whispers persist though, behind his back, and he would give anything to be invisible, to just be allowed to fight.

Being noticed by the dux is the exact opposite of that desire for invisibility. A glance like that, not to mention a direct acknowledgement, brings with it attention he’d rather not have. But were that all there was to it, an unwanted honor. No. The moment Geraldus, the beloved Bas of the Caesar himself, came towards him, all of Timo’s senses turned to him like a thirsting plant turns to the first raindrops. The gods themselves know how he managed to remember his courtesies when he noticed that the handsome young stranger was a royal, couldn’t be anyone but their supreme commander. May be it was because he would have dropped to his knees for Geraldus even if he were he a common man, even if he were a slave, even if he were infamia, as shameful as that was.

He botches the next set of exercises as well. Righetti is beside himself now, worry curling his kindly brows, and he thumps Timo on the shoulder, tells him to go take a break. Timo steps off the field with a long sigh, picks up a canteen of water, and starts an aimless perambulation of the camp. May be he’ll go find Zetonious, who has been in turn a brother, a friend and sometimes a lover, and maybe Zeto can talk some sense into him. Because this need, this is insane, and Timo wants to shake it off, as soon as he can.

A commotion attracts his notice - many of the legionaries and sagittaries are gathered around two people fighting with dagger, gladius and shield. For a moment as the crowd parts, he gets a glimpse of long graceful legs, bound by leather sandals, the movement of the bright white cotton tunic edged in purple on muscular thighs as the combatant flexes and adapts his stance. His feet turn to the gathering, without any input from his mind, and he squeezes in through the gathered men cheering, shouting, swearing and egging on the fighters. Geraldus is facing a blond giant, Albinius Marcellus, who is from Alemania, and for his intense fighting style, called Mad Bum. He is a close friend of the dux, who favors men from his birthplace, and from what Timo has heard, they often pair-up on the exercise field, and are quite evenly matched - they make a good battery.

Timo has never watched them perform exercises before. He prefers his own corner of the camp, sticks to his own exercises, and when he is not on duty, spends time playing his wooden flute, or wanders around the woods near the tents. Now though, he couldn’t move even if Jove himself struck him down. The two men circle each other, measuring up their opponent. While Mad Bum is larger and taller, Geraldus (”Bas”, Timo’s traitorous mind whispers) is faster on his feet, quicker with his hands. Timo, if he had to bet, would place his money on the dux. With a clash of steel on steel, the two begin to parry and thrust. The dux lowers his left shield hand for a moment, and seeing an opening, Bum slashes at the leather chest plate of Geraldus, a violent, heavy motion. Bas dances away and Bum’s blade nicks the right sleeve of his tunic. A bright line of red blossoms, the crowd draws in a shuddering breath, Timo gets a lump of icy fear in his throat, and even Bum looks taken aback.

But no, at the sight of blood, a fierce white grin splits the dux’s face, delight and ruthlessness mingling. He salutes Bum with the flat of his own gladius, lets his shield fall to the ground, and then, in a split second, in a motion that is as lovely as poetry, kicks out at Bum’s left knee, and when he stumbles, moves under his sword-bearing arm, knocks off his shield with a slice of his dagger, and uses the momentum of Bum’s fall to push him to his knees, the sharp gladius held tight against his throat. The whole maneuver takes less than a minute, so beautifully executed that it looks effortless. The dux is still smiling, though it is softer now, amused fondness, and asks, his voice low and clear, his latin polished but with a faint undertone of the Germanic he learned in the first three years of his life, in his uncle’s camps, “Do you yield, friend?”

Bum looks furious for a moment, then says, “Yes my Lord”, and laughs a loud, booming laugh, as the dux sheathes his gladius and dagger and offers a hand to Bum, hauls him to his feet. He is still smiling as he says, “You are always distracted by the sight of my blood, so I allowed you to nick me, and that is why you lost.” Bum rolls his eyes, “Minerva forbid the sight of my Lord’s wounds distract me!”. They’re both laughing, as they turn to the cheering men, and Timo feels the exact moment those ocean blue eyes find him among the spectators. Geraldus had been taking off his helmet, was shaking out his dark curls, and when he sees Timo, his hand clenches on the straps. Timo’s senses narrow down to him, until the sights and sounds of the crowd fade away - his slightly beaked nose, the lush pink mouth still holding on to the traces of his smile, the flush of exercise on his cheeks, already shadowed with stubble in the afternoon, the fine eyebrows, the long tapered fingers and deceptively elegant, deadly hands. And the endless depth of those eyes, looking straight at Timo, commanding him to drown.

Someone jostles Timo, and he comes back to the world, to his senses. He breaks his gaze from the dux’s face, and with panic tight in his chest, turns and escapes from there.


	3. Assignation 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe smiles, his composure undisturbed, and says, “I think you are going on a journey tonight Timotheus, and I’d like to be your guide”.

It is close to the end of the second watch of the night, and Timo draws in his cloak tightly around him. The pit-fire has burnt down to embers, a soft red glow illuminating his watch post, and the stars in the sky are veiled in the dark clouds that have been gathering, bank upon bank in the heavens. A cool breeze brings with it the faint fragrance of the lavendula in the fields on the other side of the woods and ruffles his hair. In the hush of the camp winding down, Timo can hear the hooting of the owl, the murmur of the leaves moving, 

A heavy tread of sandals intrudes upon the quiet, and his hands go to the dagger in his belt, before he realizes that the tall shadow that materializes out of the darkness is Josephus, the young Christian libertini who works as the dux’s personal scribe. In the faint light cast by the dying fire-pit, the boy’s face has a ruddy glow, hairless even at the late hour, even though Timo should be the last man to comment on that. He looks at Timo with bright curious eyes, his bearing calm and steady. The resemblance to the dux is astonishing - a sweeter, younger version of the dux’s chiselled elegance and poise. Rumors that swirl around the camp about their leader say that young Joe’s mother was bought as a slave by the dux’s father during his posting in Antioch, that the dux and Joe are, in truth, brothers in blood.

It would be so much easier, Timo thinks with rueful amusement, if he had lost his head over the boy. And yet, while the dux’s face, alive with sharp intelligence and humor, his hooded eyes, have seemingly imprinted itself on Timo’s fickle heart, Joe, so alike and unlike Geraldus, arouses only an aesthetic appreciation in him. Joe, who has not left off his silent contemplation of Timo’s face in the flickering fire for these unquiet moments. Timo clears his throat and essays a greeting - “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Josephus?”, remembering to use the boy’s, no, the man’s formal nomen. Joe smiles, his composure undisturbed, and says, “I think you are going on a journey tonight Timotheus, and I’d like to be your guide”.

Timo’s heart stops for a moment, and then flutters against its cage of bones like a wingless bird. “And where would this journey take me, O Christian, you who can prophesy?”, he says, his voice shockingly hoarse, ragged. The curl of the boy’s mouth is badly suppressed mirth, his eyes dancing - “To a friend, Timo, one who has waited for you long”. He reaches his hand towards Timo, and tugs him up from the log he had been sitting on, leads him towards the shadows. Two Maremmano horses, Timo notices even through the haze of his impossible longing and shock, caparisoned in the Caesar’s livery, wait for them. Joe smoothly hauls himself onto the saddle of the bay mare, leaving the black stallion for Timo. Timo draws a hand through the beast’s mane, a quiet caress, and then vaults onto its back. They quietly wend their way to the city, Joe leading the way in the gloom. The clattering of the horses hooves on the cobbles and the sound of the waves of the Tiber are the only accompaniment to the riders. Timo’s heartbeat says, “I want, I want, I want”, his mind a muddle of fear and craving and need.


	4. deinde centum, dein mille altera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Beneath him, the crushed meadow of new grass and lavender, the perfume rising in the warm summer air"

Bas sends Bum to wake Timo up at the first light of dawn, and Timo is still quite sleepy, so he doesn’t question why the general needs to ride out in the cool gray morning with only his iaculator and his body guard as company. As they are about to leave the camp, Timo beside Bas and Bum riding a pace behind, Josephus runs up to Bas, calm as usual, but the mischief in those eyes still gets to Timo.

He puts a hand on Bas’s knee and holds up an oilskin wrapped package, easy and familiar as brothers ( _they are brothers_ , Timo’s mind whispers), and says, “Lord, don’t forget the supplies!”, dimpling smile and a flash of white teeth, when, to Timo’s complete and utter surprise, Bas blushes a dusky rose. Behind them, Bum snorts his own amusement, and Bas turns back on his horse to glare at the huge Alemanian.

And then he looks at Timo, and the blush deepens, but his blue-gray eyes glitter, with hunger, with resolve, with the intent to conquer and destroy. Timo’s stomach clenches, fingers going nerveless on the reins, eyelashes sweeping down, an instinctive reaction in the light of the dux’s regard. Bas smiles then, a quick sharp knife-edge of a smile, and kicks his heels against the horse’s flank to get his mare into a trot. They gallop out of the camp, Bum falling back, while Bas and Timo ride abreast of each other, cool morning breeze in their faces, Bas’s curls ruffled in the wind, his lovely thighs flexing in the motion. Timo’s entire world is this beauty and glory, and the anticipation of his own surrender.

 

Timo’s head spins. Beneath him, the crushed meadow of new grass and lavender, the perfume rising in the warm summer air. Above him, Bas, opening him up with exquisite care, like he’s precious and cherished, blue blue eyes pinning him with the weight of their regard. He’s so tender, Timo thinks, and gasps as Bas’s fingers brush up against a spot inside him that makes his blood fizz and sparks ignite his nerve endings. “Now, now”, he says, voice gone hoarse, the bare length of Bas’s body enveloping him like silk as he enters Timo, takes him heart and soul. Timo doesn’t know when he closed his eyes, overwhelmed at the sweet invasion, feeling himself opening, accepting Bas. He twists beneath Bas, rising to meet his thrusts, the honeyed heavy ache of being possessed, owned, marked - almost unbearable in its intensity. “Open for me”, Bas croons to him, the movements of his hips hypnotic in their smooth rhythm, Timo’s cock brushing against Bas’s belly, as he drives Timo insane, closer and closer to a completion that Timo knows he will never recover from, never forget. “Open your eyes for me, carissimo, see me”, Buster whispers in his ears, like a prayer, and Timo can do nothing but obey. His hands rise to cup Bas’s face, and Bas’s smile lights up the world.


End file.
